Among countless clubs and after-school activities at Sage Creek, the FTC Robotics Club stands out as one of the largest and most well-established on campus.
FTC (First Tech Challenge) is a global competition where robotics teams are tasked with designing a robot to complete an annual challenge announced in September. The robots can cost over thousands of dollars to build along with countless hours of coding, brainstorming and designing.
These teams, often exceeding 20 people, work towards the ultimate objective of winning the World Championship in April. But getting there requires teams to beat all other regional rivals in several other competitions beforehand. With thousands of teams competing, only the best of the best make it to the top.
Out of five teams here at Sage, Crow Force had particular success in the first regional competition. But with only four weeks until tournament three, it’s up to teams to redesign and refine their robots for further success.
“We are designing our new ideas at this phase, and we’re getting prepared to build them in real life and test them,” said junior Trennan Lange, hardware lead on Crow Force.
At this point in the season, teams are familiar with the challenge and what needs to be done. Based on their failure or success at the first and second tournaments, robots might need a minor refinement or a whole new design to make it to the next step.
So far, Crow Force’s ambition and effort paid off as the first competition resulted in a sweeping success.
“At the first tournament, we set the record for southern California,” said Crow Force software lead and junior Kiran Musson.
Tournaments are divided into several matches per team, with time in between to set up and prepare. Scoring is split into two parts: the 30-second autonomous portion, where the robot is driven by its code, and the Teleop, where the robot is driven by designated human drivers.
When it came time for the Second tournament, Crow Force faced some troubles. This competition was on Dec. 22, during winter break, which caused several team members to be unable to attend the competition. But that wasn’t the only challenge.
“Specifically for Competition 2 we completely rebuilt the robot the week before leaving us short time to code it,” said senior Sophia Gocan, captain of Crow Force.
The third tournament for Crow Force will be held at Sage Creek on Jan. 19, and there is much to be done since the last competition.
“Our goal for Competition 3 is to win more of our matches while improving how many points we score for each match,” said Gocan.
Before Competition 3, Crow Force will need to rebuild their robot by building off ideas from Competition 1 and two robots. This task requires all hands on deck for the robot to be built in time. It would also need to be re-coded as a new robot comes with new positioning of components, size and ideas
“We’re going to keep going at full speed with all our members and doing the best we can to design a winning robot,” said Lange.
With less than a month to prepare, members will have to work at 100% to achieve these goals.
“We’re continuing development of software for the world record, we are basically the Lebron James of FTC,” said Musson.
As of now, Crow Force seems to be treading on a promising path, but only time will tell how far in the season they go.
